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In his appeal of a state Office of Open Records decision that images of in-person ballots are not public, county resident Jeffrey Stroehmann argued, "It would be absurd to conclude the General Assembly wanted images of mail-in and absentee ballots made public but not those cast in person," according to a story from PennLive.com.
Stroehmann made his argument in a brief before Lycoming County Judge Eric R. Linhardt this week.
Linhardt, who is reviewing the images from the 2020 general election that Stroehmann wanted made public, had allowed him and the county's office of Voter Services a chance to submit briefs before making his decision, PennLive reported.
Stroehmann, who chaired former President Donald Trump's campaign in the county and attended the Jan. 6, 2021 rally in Washington D.C., argues that the images he seeks are public under the Election Code and the Right-to-Know Law, the story stated.
Stroehmann noted that all ballots, whether at the precinct or election board level, go through a scanner, PennLive said.
In a related case, at the end of last year, Linhardt had overruled an open records decision that found that cast vote records (CVR) from the 2020 general election in the county were public record, the story said.
Before Linhardt's ruling went into effect, which granted Stroehmann and three other county Republicans access to the images, the state Department of State intervened on behalf of the county and filed an appeal with Commonwealth Court.
Lycoming County director of Voter Services Forrest Lehman has explained that Act 77 amended the Election Code to make images of mail-in and absentee ballots public. The election code is silent on whether images of those case on election day are public, PennLive said.
Stroehmann contends that although Act 77 authorized mail-in voting, it did not need to address in-person ballots because there was previous authorization making them public.
The images that Stroehmann is seeking are taken electronically as voters feed the ballots into a scanner for tabulation at polling sites. They do not reveal the voter's identity, the story said.
PennLive reported that Lehman has called on the governor and the legislature to address the ambiguities in the Election Code so that there is continuity.
The two litigations challenge the accuracy of the 2020 presidential election results, even though Trump defeated Joe Biden in the county by 16,000 votes, according to PennLive.